Recently in Damn Dog Category
Thank you everyone.
The deed has been done. It is finished.
If you read the last entry you will note -
He made an appointment to have her put to sleep.
He has done the right thing. It can only be done when the vet is available. We couldn't run right out and just do it.
No more bashing Steve in the comments. I will not tolerate it.
The dog is being put to sleep this evening. He spent yesterday evening digging her grave and metally preparing for what is to come.
We have had a very long talk and worked out the hostility and frustration and anger and hurt feelings. It was more a misunderstanding and trying to cope more than opposing views of what needs to be done.
Please be kind. My husband is not a bad guy. He is however dealing with the loss of his companion of 11 years. I don't know how to comfort him and this causes frustration. I don't know what he is feeling because where I come from things were handled much differently on our farm.
We are in this together and there never was a strain on our marriage. There was however a big hump in the road.
It was warm and sunny yesterday. I took the dog out and put her in the sunshine. She spent the entire afternoon in the sun. She sat up. She laid down. She barked and panted. She did not move from her spot. She is completely paralyzed. Shen we move her she cries out so we know that now she is in pain. She is being made comfortable. She is eating well. She is still taking her meds. She is living out her last day.
This evening will be hard when he brings her home to her final resting place.
Say a prayer for us.
Thank you all for your comments and emails. Most of them were very kind.
Let me make it clear that I have not been on the sidelines chanting 'put the dog down'. Neither have I been a cheerleader with every movement of a leg or toe. I have not overly encouraged him or discouraged him in any way. She is not showing real improvement and I can't play into the "Look! Her leg moved. Everything is fine now" game. It is wrong. Someone has to be a grown up here and it seems to always fall on me.
I was asked to help make a desicion and I refused to participate. She is not my dog. I also won't have it come back to haunt me that I had the ultimate sway in how things played out. I have made it very clear I will not be care taker or nursemaid to a dog. I did NOT take wedding vows "in sickness and in health" with any dog included as part of my commiment to my marriage.
The dog has had her steroid shots. She has been given oral steroids as prescribed. She has been crated since I brought her home from the vet last week. She has shown a tiny bit of improvement. She can stand on her back legs about one minute then she lists to the side and goes down. Which isn't really improvement at all. She can't walk on her own. She is sleeping far more than she ever slept before. She is taken out frequently to do her business but she still has accidents. Weither she can control that completely or not I am not sure.
Steve has taken this very hard. I have been as supportive as I can be but I won't tell him everything will be okay when obviously it is not. I won't be the one to blow smoke up his ass and make him feel better just to let this dog continue to linger in this state and myself being forced to be the caregiver every day. It is not fair to anyone involved. Especially not the dog.
He has reluctantly called the vet, who discussed having treated the dog with him, and the time has come to realize she will not recover. He made an appointment to have her put to sleep. I feel like when he even discusses the situation he is pointing invisible fingers at me and blaming me for something. When asked he won't discuss it. So even by not saying anything and not weighing-in to help make a choice I feel like I am going to carry the lion's share of the burden forever in having this dog put down. Thirty years from now I will be one who ultimately made him put his dog down. I can already feel it in the air. It is an unspoken communication hovering there.
I am very tired of having to be the strong one all of the time.
Over the weekend I noticed Steve's dog was having a bit of trouble walking. It seemed to occur when she was outside laying in the sunshine for extended periods of time. She would get stiff and take a bit before she could walk it out and get to moving. I thought she was having a case of arthiritis as the weather is turning colder and she is moving toward 11 years old.
By Tuesday she could not stand up at all on her hind legs. They would not function at all. She was pulling herself with her front legs to go were she wanted to be. I called the vet then called Steve.
I don't want to seem cold hearted but I did try to prepare Steve for the fact she could have had a stroke. She was shaking, panting and paralyzed from mid back down. Also that if it was something that would leave her paralyzed and crippled and could not be corrected I was not prepared to tend to her day after day and he would have to decide what to do.
In my opinion there is no quality of life for a dog who can't move around. I also asked him to decide how much was too much to pay for treatment and what i was supposed to do when I took in. He had few answers and I could tell he was completely uncomfortable with entire situation.
That evening when Steve came home he sat with the dog and acted like she was on life support and the plug was going to be pulled. He has NEVER shown her that much attention and it pissed me off that he didn't want anyone to touch her, hardly look at her and he couldn't help with Steven or other things because he couldn't drag himself away from 'his dog' - who he has always declared he didn't really care for but his actions always speak louder then words.
Myself - I hate this dog. And I have good reason to.
Wednesday I took her to the vet's office. After a quick look the vet knew immediately what the problem was.
Steve's dog has a slipped disk. It is not uncommon and something seen relatively often in older dogs who can't seem to keep away from running up and down staircases. She did an exam to determine her level of paralysis and other things and gave her a shot of steroids, some oral meds and said to watch her for about 5 days.
The dog has some sense of pain and reaction in her hind legs. She is partially paralyzed. It is a 50/50 thing right now that she may or may not recover. The meds will help the disk to shrink and hopefully go back in place. For now she has to be crated for 24 hours a day except when we take her out for bathroom breaks. Steve looks at every sign as she is recovering. I don't see any improvement from how she was at the vet's office.
We have been using a sling around her rear end to help her get out side to go to the bathroom. She has NO use, none at all, in her back legs. Moving a foot does not show me any sign of improvement. She could do that in the vets office. Steve acts like it is a 100% recovery. I don't know ho wmuch longer I can be nice or civil about this situation to him.
I am not looking forward to having her put to sleep. I am not trying to make him have her put to sleep. I am trying to make him stop thinking just because she flexed a toe she is recovered.
He is gone 14 hours or more a day. The care of everything here is on my shoulders. I absolutely refuse to be tied down to an animal who can't do nothing but drag around pitifully and look at your with sad eyes. Now, again, I am the mean one. I am being uncopperative. I am looking for reasons to put her down. Etc. Etc. Blah, blah, blah.
If she does recover and can stand on her hind legs and move herself around, She must be crated every night and she can never be allowed to climb stairs again. And this sitaution can happen again which will most likely leave her completely paralyzed.
The vet told me in all honesty that if she doesn't get back up on her legs in the next 3 or 4 days she most likely never will. For me, in that case, the answer is plain. She will have no quality of live. she won't be able to run or chase the cat or groundhogs or squirrels. She'll be a dog who lays on a pillow and can't even take herself out to relieve herself. That is no life.
Somebody tell me I am not being mean and cruel in my refusal to play nursemaid to this dog.
